COLUMBUS, Ohio — Governor Mike DeWine made a plea to the Food and Drug Administration Sunday.
- DeWine held an emergency press conference Sunday
- The FDA eventually approved allowing Battelle to use a machine to sterilize up to 80,000 N95 masks a day
- DeWine says the original approval was only for 10,000 a day
"We do not have enough masks," DeWine said at the press conference. “We have been waiting and waiting and waiting.”
The FDA fully approved a Critical Care Decontamination System developed by Columbus-based Battelle.
The governor believes it will go a long way toward keeping health care workers safe.
"We developed a technology at Battelle that showed we could take N95 respirators and that we could clean them with a concentrated hydrogen peroxide vapor for a period of several hours and basically decontaminate them for lots of things, including bugs that are worse than COVID-19," said Battelle CEO Lou Von Thaer.
Battelle says it has two machines ready to go in Ohio, one more on Long Island, and several other set to be deployed across the country.
DeWine said he had a good conversation with President Donald Trump about the issue. President Trump brought up the conversation at his press conference on Sunday.
"As soon as I heard from Mike today, I got involved and the FDA is now involved and we're trying to get a fast approval for the sterilization of masks. That would be a tremendous difference. It will be really helpful," said Trump.
The CEO of Battelle says masks can be cleaned up to 20 times. He also says the company can start sending sterilized masks out on Tuesday.